Long-term effect of high-dose dexamethasone with or without low-dose dexamethasone maintenance in untreated immune thrombocytopenia.

Background: To tackle the problems associated with high-dose dexamethasone (HD-DXM) in patients with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP).

Aim: To compare the efficacy of HD-DXM with or without low-dose dexamethasone maintenance in untreated ITP patients.

Results: Dexamethasone (40 mg/day) was given in 4-day pulses every 14 days for 3 cycles in 61 patients with ITP.

Effect of homoharringtonine on bone marrow CD34 + CD117 + cells in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

This study investigated the effect of homoharringtonine (HHT) on bone marrow CD34 + CD117 + cells in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Fifty-seven patients with CML who could not receive either imatinib or interferon-α were treated with HHT (n = 31) or hydroxycarbamide (HU) (n = 26) to induce and maintain remission, and bone marrow CD34 + CD117 + cells were assayed with flow cytometry. The proportion of CD34 + CD117 + cells was higher in untreated patients (24.